


Guilt Trip

by mrstater, vladnyrki



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 11:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6656710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vladnyrki/pseuds/vladnyrki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Daisy under Hive's control, Coulson's guilt overtakes his mind. However, the most painful memories can also be a place of solace. (Set between 3x17 and 3x18)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rock bottom

_ In the distance, the dark clouds gathered at an alarming rate, and the wind grew stronger, warm and humid. _

 

_ The storm would be upon them soon. _

 

_ “Okay Phil, let’s pack up. No trout for us today…” _

 

_ His father didn’t speak the words, but the mischievous glint in his eyes was more expressive than a hundred words. His smile said it all: “I told you so.” But Phil hadn’t listened. This was the last week of summer break. School was starting again and there would be no time for fishing trips anymore. He'd protested and cried until Dad gave in and loaded the gear into the pickup and drove to the lake. _

 

_ In the end, for all his tantrums, the afternoon was still ruined: a two-hour drive and a hasty run from the storm, all for nothing. _

 

_ Still too proud to admit defeat, Phil stood stubbornly at the edge of the river, his eyes scanning the darkening waters for anything resembling a fish. _

 

_ “Come on, stop sulking.” _

 

_ His father’s big hand ruffled his hair as Phil bit his lips, big tears forming in his eyes. He wasn’t a baby, he wasn’t going to cry over a stupid fishing trip. _

 

_ But he was crying about a stupid fishing trip. He had waited for so long. The tent was in the car, three days of fishing and camping, just with his dad… _

 

_ “Let’s go, Phil. There’s nothing you can do about the weather. You adapt to it , not the other way ar--” _

 

_ Then nothing. Nothing but his father, face down in the river, crimson red contaminating the water. _

 

_ Another shot. _

 

_ And Phil ran. _

 

=/=

 

For the last two days, the  _ Zephyr One _ had been in the air, looking for any suspicious activity that would lead them to Hive. To Daisy. For the last two days, Fitz and Simmons had worked frantically in the lab, searching for anything, any clue that would help them to produce a vaccine, a test, something that would protect the Inhumans against Hive’s influence, would free them from his control.

 

Meanwhile, Coulson had buried himself in Malick’s accounts, in SHIELD’s files, in his own memories to come up with a proper strategy. He couldn’t afford any more losses. For the last two days, he had barely stepped out of his office. He needed to find something, a piece of evidence, a lead.

 

“ _ You’re torturing yourself on purpose. Stop it. _ ” May’s words had been harsh the day before, and his own biting reply sent her out of his office.

 

Of course, she was right. She knew him too well. Decades of witnessing him as guilt routinely swallowed him up whole. In the most ironic way, such experience didn’t shield her from her own guilt from the Bahrain debacle.

 

Coulson let out a bitter snort and stood up to stretch a little. In spite of the reading glasses, he was seeing double. 

 

Time for a break.

 

If he remembered right, the Scotch bottle should still be around. He and Roz opened it on the flight back home, after Andrew’s capture. Tentatively, they had started to open up to each other, here, in this office. He had felt for the first time that this dance he had with Roz might be more than a simple spy dance. Her smile had been genuine as her hands worked on his tie--the very same hands that had unknotted the same tie hours later.

 

He shouldn’t go this route. He should throw the bottle away. Too many memories. 

 

When the first chords of Bach’s prelude resounded in the room, he went to retrieve the bottle and the tumbler. 

 

=/=

 

Apocalyptica’s rather discordant version of the  _ Hall of the Mountain King _ resounded in Audrey’s living room--once he had dared question her fascination with this group, not twice. The bottle of Cognac he had brought back from his latest mission in France was already half empty. The French knew the good stuff. And the US customs taxes for a mere can of  _ foie gras _ were outlandish.

 

But it was worth it. Every dollar of it. He had surprised Audrey after the concert for an impromptu dinner and weekend. Three months of hasty phone calls and texts had been hard enough. He wanted to be with her. He needed to talk to her.

 

The delighted company and the Cognac had vanquished his last doubts.

 

"That wasn't your fault, Phil," Audrey said after he told her about the ill-fated last one. "You were a child...those were trained assassins…" 

 

He heard the hitch in her voice, the strain as she struggled to reconcile the world she'd been raised in, cutthroat as professional musicianship could be, with his, where so much blood was literally spilled. 

 

"I know that, rationally," he replied. "It's survivor's guilt. I've been to therapists. Doesn't change the fact that I've spent every day of my life since I was nine wondering that if I'd just shaken off my disappointment and got in the damn truck like Dad said, he would've been out of the line of fire. Or why they didn't kill me, too." 

 

She looked troubled at that, but slipped her hand into his, and rested her head against his shoulder. "Well I, for one, am very grateful they didn't. You saved my life. And you're a pretty amazing boyfriend." 

 

At the time, it had been so easy to give in to her gentle words and touch, to allow himself to believe that the lives he'd saved since he accepted Nick Fury's offer to join SHIELD had somehow atoned for that original sin. But as he knelt beside Audrey's unconscious form on the concert hall stage after her second brush with Daniels, and whispered to her that he was there for her, so near yet still so far away, like a goddamn  _ ghost,  _ he knew he'd been lying to himself. She had a broken heart and a target on her back, and it was because of him. It had been so selfish to get involved with her. Like the bratty kid who still believed he could control the weather. 

 

He knew people who really could do that, now. 

 

He wasn't one of them.

 

=/=

 

Bringing the Avengers together. Remaining a secret to ensure their cohesion. It was all a lie. Flashes of last year's newsfeeds came back, gnawing at him. A whole city torn up from its land, floating up in the sky, higher, higher. Higher. Metallic puppets swarming like insects.

 

He still didn’t know how they managed to bring the helicarrier to Sokovia in time. The engines hadn’t even been tested properly yet.

 

But the carrier remained in the air, and SHIELD saved the day at the last moment, as Bobbi pointed out to Gonzalez and his crew. For a moment, Coulson had accepted the compliment, and almost believed that Fury’s madness had been worth it.

 

However, once they defeated Jiaying’s plans, in the darkness of his private quarters, his right hand blindly reaching to a painful limb that wasn’t there anymore, the cold reality was unavoidable. Maybe Mack shouldn’t have saved him.

 

Maybe he shouldn’t have trumped death one more time.

 

Maybe he should have let things be normal again.

 

Gonzalez was right. His being alive wasn’t natural. It wasn’t normal. And nothing good came out of it.

 

Terrigen crystals in the ocean. A crippled SHIELD. The Avengers almost destroying the world.

 

Remaining in the shadows was supposed to ensure their cohesion. But Fury had overestimated the power of mourning, it seemed.

 

Or maybe he had overestimated the lasting power of Coulson’s memory.

 

What a joke.

 

=/=

 

One moment she was laughing. The next, blood gurgled from her throat, the cruel punchline to someone else's sick sense of humor. 

 

Coulson had been  on the other end of this. The flash of his own life in the moment of shock as his neurons fired before he bled out. Was he dying? He wasn't ready to go. There was so much left to live for, so much unresolved. Audrey, and the much needed road trip they were planning along the Pacific coast… Couldn't he at least tell her goodbye? That he was sorry? He choked out words to Fury that this was necessary, that the Avengers needed it, but...He hated to think of Audrey looking like his mother, all those years ago, when she'd heard about his father. And Dad...was this what he felt, in that half a minute, no, fifteen seconds? 

 

He cradled Rosalind, wondering if he'd been shot, too, as the whole of their story played out in seconds. An adversarial relationship  turned to an uneasy alliance turned to genuine affection...She couldn't be dying, this couldn't be the end...Was she afraid? Did she feel regret? Her eyes met his, glassy, pleading.  _ Help me _ . 

 

But he couldn't help her. Could only be there, for the few seconds it took, so she wouldn't die alone.  _ I'm here. I'm here.  _

 

He'd spoken those words to Audrey in a scene eerily like this, that could have had this end. Were they of any comfort to Roz? To know she was dying in the arms of the man whose fault it was Grant Ward killed her? 

 

=/=

 

_ Grant Ward. _

 

_ Hive. _

 

Coulson woke up with a start at the sound of a glass breaking on the floor. He blinked furiously as he observed his surroundings.

 

His office on the  _ Zephyr One _ .

 

The half empty bottle of Scotch joined the glass on the floor with a crash, and he had to cling briefly to the desk to keep his balance.

 

Turbulence. Big turbulence. Time to strap in, again.

 

The whole plane trembled around him as it flew through a storm around Chicago. The plan was to scout the Great Lakes area before heading south to the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, they were fumbling blindly all around them, with no vaccine, and no strategy. At best, they’d only be able to react to whatever Hive had in store.

 

Coulson hated that. He was tired of reacting all the time.

 

For the last two years, not once had he been able to formulate a proper strategy, a long-term plan, anything sustained by a solid vision. Each time he had the impression that he was building something at last, all his plans were shattered by the unexpected.

 

Back to square one. Back to reacting.

 

What a shame. Why did Fury bother to revive him? Why had he gone to such great lengths to give him the keys of SHIELD?

 

In the last two years, Coulson had built absolutely nothing, and lost so many good people.

 

Trip. Gonzalez. Bobbi and Hunter. Andrew. Rosalind. Daisy.

 

So many losses because he couldn’t control the impulses of the  Kree blood in him, because he couldn’t see a trap before he put his foot in it, because he thought he could manipulate Ward… And for a moment, he'd almost believed he could be Fury’s heir.

  
The truth was, he shouldn’t be there at all.


	2. Resurfacing

 

Either May was doing barrell rolls again, or it was the Scotch that made the clouds and the farmland far below switch places. Coulson gripped the arms of his seat, closed his eyes until he regained equilibrium, then pushed to his feet. Still not entirely steady, using the edge of his desk for balance, he went to the corner cabinet, pulled open the doors, and began to rifle through it. 

 

What exactly he was looking for, he wasn't sure. More Scotch would be unwise; this much already had been. His gaze settled on a box near the back, either pushed there or having slid during one of May's stunts. He didn't need to open it to know what was in it, for his heart to give an electric twinge. 

 

What the hell, he thought, taking it out, he was already on a guilt trip. Might as well go all the way, make this last stop on his stroll through unhappy memory lane, and look through Trip's collection of vintage spy tech. One more good agent fallen on his watch, a family legacy abruptly ended. The grandson of a Howling Commando deserved a much better fate…

 

Coulson pawed through the contents of the box: the walkie talkie disguised as a quarter, the portable x-ray scanner, the cigarette laser Fitz set the curtains on fire with, the...What was this? 

 

His fingers curled around a small gold tube that was definitely  _ not  _ part of a Howling Commando's tactical gear, but the sort of thing more likely to be found in a woman's handbag. He scuffed the pad of his finger over the lettering etched into the metal:  _ 102 Sweet Dreams.  _

 

This didn't belong here. Must've gotten swept into the box by mistake during one of the moves from the Bus to the Playground, or the Playground to Zephyr One. 

 

He uncapped the tube, twisted the bottom. As the deep crimson lipstick rose, a memory rushed to the front of his mind with such force that he had to sit down again. 

 

His mother sat at her vanity, putting the final touches on her outfit for a night out at the movies. Pearl earrings. Dab of perfume. She was being indecisive about her lipstick, and Phil crept into the room, reached into her makeup drawer and took out the shiny gold tube. "What about this one?"

 

Her blue eyes had twinkled mischievously. "That would certainly knock your dad off his feet, in a matter of speaking," She took it from him, turned it over in her hands. "This one's more of a souvenir." 

 

"Did you buy it on vacation?"

 

She'd just laughed.

 

Those were the good days. When the three of them lived like any ordinary all-American family.

 

Fireworks on the 4th of July. Ball games. Trips to the lake. Ice skating and cycling. Red Corvette in the garage.

 

Phil had grown up blissfully, the only child of a storyless couple, a history teacher from Massachusetts and a gym instructor from Iowa who had become pillars of the community over the years.

 

Then a single bullet destroyed the illusion. The Coulsons were anything but storyless.

 

Coulson capped the lipstick again and slid it in his pocket. He’d definitely need some extra luck on this search for Hive and Daisy.

 

Two days after a hasty funeral, he had spied his mother as she went through an old suitcase he never knew they possessed, her lips shiny with the dark crimson lipstick. When she had stepped out of the house, she hadn’t kissed him goodnight for the first time since his birth and the last time ever, her expression cold and hollow.

 

She came back in the middle of the night, with a limp, her expression sad but strangely peaceful. The next morning, they were gone, off to Louisiana.

 

On that fateful week, Coulson discovered that a spy never retired. Even if that was their most cherished desire. Governments never left an asset alone, never--knowledge and competence were too much of a deadly mix for the puppet masters. The next few years had passed in a succession of moves throughout the state: rental houses in rural towns, trailer parks on the bayou, finally a shabby apartment in New Orleans.  _ To keep you safe _ was the only explanation his mother ever gave, though every time he lay awake, unused to the sounds and shadows of a new bedroom, and waiting for her to come home from late shifts at minimum wage jobs while her health deteriorated, he questioned whether he was really worth all the effort. 

 

Trouble found him in New Orleans--along with Nick Fury and the truth. As much truth as Fury ever dispensed all at once, anyway. "You're a lot like your mother," he'd said. "Why don't you come to work for me and one of her old friends?" 

 

Mother hadn't precisely given her blessing, but she had given Coulson that tube of lipstick as a parting gift. 

 

_ For luck _ .

 

Working for SHIELD, he found the family he longed for, and the financial means to help with his mother’s medical bills. Sometimes, something as simple--but terribly expensive--as a hip replacement did wonders to a person, rejuvenating them for the years to come.

 

He met May, and together they fought against the rest of their class, sharing the same burden of being the  _ kids _ among far older trainees. He met Garrett and Blake. Everything went in a blur. Graduating. First missions. The heading feeling of being part of History as a wall fell in Berlin and an empire collapsed less than a couple of years later. Hubris.

 

_ First failure. _

 

_ Three months in the hospital. Bruised spine. May would remain the sole specialist of their team. He still could be a field agent, but never a full blown specialist again. Rehab was a bitch. The organigrams of the White House and different bodies of government across the world that Fury forced him to memorize were worse. _

 

_ The judging look on his mother’s face at this bedside was a proper nightmare. _

 

_ "As your mother I can't say I'm too upset you won't be a specialist anymore, but as a specialist, I can say I'm disappointed in you."  _

 

_ "Welcome to the club," he gritted out as he shifted, struggling to find a comfortable angle in the bed.  _

 

_ She shook her head. "No. We're not talking about the same thing."  _

 

_ "No? Probably the pain meds. You're gonna have to be more specific."  _

 

_ She was worried about him, and he wasn't being fair to her, but he wasn't in the mood for his mother's games.  _

 

_ For a moment she was silent. Coulson had closed his eyes, but could still picture her glare, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together.  _

 

_ After a moment, she said, "Why do you have a death wish?"  _

 

_ His eyes snapped open. "I don't--" _

 

_ "Please. I'm a trained liar, Phil. Don't try to lie to me." Her voice softened. "Most of all, don't lie to yourself. I see how quick you are to put your life on the line." _

 

_ "That's the job, Mom--" _

 

_ "How detached you are from everyone around you." _

 

_ “I can’t--” _

 

_ “Stealing cars and street fights before that.” _

 

_ “That was years ago--” _

 

_ “So you were really saving the world?” _

 

_ Trust his mother to find the hidden wound and rub salt in it. A walking lie detector combined with a ruthless trainer. If the way she was looking at the books on his bedside with insistence was any indication, he was in for a  rough learning session now that he couldn’t run anywhere for cover. _

 

_ “The strategy called for it--” _ __   
  


_ “Then your strategy was bad. Period. You want to save the world? Stay alive.” _

 

_ He couldn't argue with that. But that didn't stop his mother. _

 

_ "Throwing your life away won't bring your father back," she said. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Survivor's guilt?" _

 

_ And suddenly, he was nine years old again. "If I'd just done what he said…" _

 

_ "Phil." She touched his cheek. "Those snipers would have taken him out even if you hadn't been a whiny kid. It wasn't your fault. If anyone's to blame, it's me. But your father made a choice. He knew the risks of being with someone with my background, and he chose me anyway."  _

 

_ Coulson knew that, on an intellectual level. God knew he did. But the guilt was still there, gnawing at him, years after years. Stealing cars, being a specialist, taking risks all the time, it kept the ghosts at bay, for a while. The ghosts always caught up with him, and running away faster was all he could do. _

 

_ More risky strategies. More thoughtless actions. _

 

_ “How do you do it?” His voice was small, like a child’s, as he asked the question he never dared to ask.  _ How did you keep it together all these years? Because you were trained by the Red Room?

 

_ He felt her hand slide down his shoulder, his arm, her touch so light and caring that he still couldn’t wrap his head around the idea she was a brain-washed assassin, the idea that these hands killed people almost casually. He had read the files, he had attended the SHIELD history class at the Academy, but he still couldn’t process the notion entirely. _

 

_ “The past is the past. I can’t change it. Even if I wanted to, I can’t change it. I can only forge ahead.” _

 

_ Her voice was steady, like always. Her eyes were unwavering behind the reading glasses perched on her nose. _

 

_ “I’ve done bad things. I’ve done good things. I followed good and bad people, for rational and irrational reasons.” _

 

_ Her grasp on his hand got firmer. _

 

_ “I have blood on my hands. So do you. You chose this path. I respect your decision, but I don’t want you to atone for me. For anything.” _

 

_ For a second, her expression went cold, hollow, like so many years ago. _

 

_ “The people responsible already paid the due price. It’s over. It’s the past.” _

 

_ Then it was gone, and her eyes were warm again, wrinkles underlining her smile. _

 

_ “Now, all I want to know, do you believe in what you’re doing?” _

 

A knock at the door brought Coulson back to the present setting of his office on  _ Zephyr One _ . He looked down at the box, contemplated stashing it back in the cupboard, but instead he left it where it was and said, "Come in." 

 

The door swung open, and Mack came in. "Think we might have something. Do you want me to brief you, or call a meeting, fill everyone in at once?"

 

"Let's all be on the same page," Coulson replied. 

 

He needed a moment. A pot of strong coffee. He glanced guiltily at the empty Scotch bottle and tumbler, but saw Mack's eyes on the partially unpacked box of spy paraphernalia. 

 

"Trip's," he said. 

 

"Yeah. You okay, sir?"

 

_ No. _ "I guess losing Daisy's made me think about all the people we've lost all the years."  _ I've  _ lost. "Especially lately." 

 

Mack nodded in understanding. "But we haven't lost her for good. We'll get her back." 

 

"You believe in what we're doing?" Coulson voiced the question his mother asked all those years ago. The answer then had been a certain, resounding yes. But now...

 

"Sometimes it's hard," Mack replied, perennially honest, "but I do. I have to." 

 

Coulson felt the faint pull of a smile. "Me too."

 

He stood up to join the rest of the team on the bridge. Instinctively, his good hand went to his pocket to find the lipstick cylinder once more.

 

_ The opposing team cheered their ill-won victory, caps flung in the air. It was so unfair. You had no right to injure other players to win a game. _

 

_ Phil remained stubbornly on the side of the field, fighting the angry tears back. He didn’t hear his parents approaching from behind until his father’s big hand ruffled his hair. _

 

_ “You lost today. And the umpire is always right.” _

 

_ No. It was unfair. They should be the one with the cup. Not these guys from Kenosha.  _

 

_ His mother knelt besides him, so that she could look at him right in the eyes. _

 

_ “Doesn’t mean you have to like it, though. Next year, you’ll show them.” _

 

_ Her feline smile was contagious. _

  
Coulson felt his lips form a similar grin--Director Carter said it once, that he had his mother’s smile. “Okay, time to get Daisy back.”


End file.
